


Silver and The Gator

by PsiFie



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: HeartGold & SoulSilver | Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver Versions
Genre: Child Neglect, Violence, bad times, but like not super explicit but still scary, crocodiles - Freeform, like ouchy, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 11:59:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18992224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsiFie/pseuds/PsiFie
Summary: Silver’s only 12 years old and he’s really on top of things. He’s got 4 pokemon and they’re all really strong and cool and he’s going to be the best trainer and one day nobody’s ever going to bother him again, ever, again. It’ll just be a little while longer, now.





	Silver and The Gator

He’s 12 and he has nowhere to go. 

Luckily, it’s still summer, and he’s been planning for this for a while. Well, he was never quite planning in being abandoned by his father, but he was planning on running away from the team or something like it. As in he considered it sometimes. So he’s ready.

The first few days after The Argument he spends moving through the routes, stashing Apricorns in his bag as he goes. Since he brought a pot, he can split them and get to the softer fruit inside. It’s not a very balanced meal, but it’s alright. His hair gets pretty dirty pretty quickly but it’s nice to touch and it feels like it protects him from people, so it’s alright to keep. 

He only has one bad experience with a pokemon—it was an unfriendly Ponyta that chased him through it’s territory, a field. But soon enough he’ll have a quick solution to all that, and it’s tied to where he’s going.

New Bark Town is famous for it’s lab, and what do labs do? They have domesticated pokemon, lots of them, and this time of year, lots of trainers start their journey. So, he might be able to get a starter from there. It’s an excellent plan—truly, this is the best time of year to be abandoned!  
He’s lucky, really.

In a day or two, he’s made it to the lab. He can’t quite go in the front door but he can stare in the window and wow. There’s the pokemon, just... sitting out on a desk. One kid even walks in and takes his. He spots Silver looking in on his way out, but Silver glares at him and then he walks right out of Silver’s life, forever probably. He goes back to looking and filling his brain with thoughts of pokemon. 

The idea was.. well, maybe instead, he could just ask for a pokemon?

But that would mean questions, inquiries, adults. Adults meant losing control, and he couldn’t risk that. Adults were bad news. This whole lab was filled with adults, but that was okay, because Silver’s learned to be unreally quiet and sneaky.

...

Oh! Good thing he was wearing his gloves. His arm doesn’t need more scratches!

Rolling up his sleeve, he gazes back into the lab. Anyway, the good news is that pokemon meant gaining control. Lots of kids wandered the region without parents, he wouldn’t be seen as weird if he had a pokemon. And, he’d be safe from pokemon. And adults too, yeah.

Also, pokemon were supposed to be friends. That might be nice. 

Silver has deduced there’s a reason the first pokemon is a gift— all other aspects of pokemon training follow after that. He can’t catch a pokemon without weakening it and he’d only be able to pay for a pokeball with prize money. Really, he doesn’t have a choice here—he needs to steal a pokemon. It’s okay, the team did this all the time, and he’s going to treat his pokemon real good anyways so it’s fine. 

It’s fine, he thinks, taping over the window. It’s fine, he thinks, as he smashes the window with a rock then vaults himself over and through. This one’s fine, he thinks as he grabs the cooler or the two remaining pokemon—some kind of lizard. That’s fine, he thinks as the broken glass on the window cuts through his gloves and into his hand on his way out. 

He’s running from the scene when sees the trainer who got the first pokemon ahead of him, and he gets excited. Wait, no, he’s no eager kid, he’s gotta be scarier then that, he’s safer if he’s scarier. He strides up to the boy and challenges him, confident that the super cool and super tough pokemon he got can kick whatever lame pokemon this kid took’s butt.

The battle starts, and he sends out his little lizard thing. It’s blue gator with sharp red markings, and it looks attentively up at him for a direction. Silver tries his best, but after the battle starts things are going a little too fast and his blue dude is getting scratched and in his panic, Silver calls off the battle. Both kid and the gator give him a confused look. 

Then they both hear shouts. Crud. They must’ve discovered his _clever thievery_. Silver just picks up his pokemon, gives the other trainer a glare, and runs off with his starter. 

He gets about 20 minutes away before the Gator wriggles out of his arms and springs away. The two regard each other in silence, resting in a forest clearing.

Pokemon... they’ve only ever seemed wary and hostile to him, but Silver once read that domestic pokemon can be friends. Tentatively, he reaches out a hand for the gator-thing to sniff. It leans forward inquisitively, staring at his glove, and Silver feels a little hopeful.

Until his pokemon _tears_ into his hand with it’s teeth. Silver lets out a yell, trying to pull his hand back, but The Gator has clamped on to it. It hurts. He doesn’t even know where he’s hurt yet, but it hurts, and his mind immediately goes to how he’s going to survive with this injury. He begins to rationalize how he’s going to survive with two injured hands before The Gator has even let go. Silver attempts to pull his hand back, but it teeth tear at his skin more if he does that. So, he just waits. 

It aches. Blood is running down his hand and dripping on the grass. The gator stares at him, and he stares nervously back. Maybe this’ll be okay. He’d always wanted to learn how to be ambidextrous. He’ll just use whichever hand is healing up the best.

The Gator somehow clamps down his jaw harder and Silver tries his best not to let out a squeal. His breathing is labored now, and he feels pretty tired. He tugs again, but the sharp pain in his hand and arm makes him stop. Carefully, he lifts up his other hand and attempts to pry off The Gator’s jaw. Touching it is extremely uncomfortable and the discomfort is only slightly alleviated by his gloves. He pushes a bit more firmly, and The Gator growls. He wants to stop but he can’t. Hand shaking, he pulls back his injured hand and punches The Gator in the side of the face. His pokemon just looks entirely baffled. Wincing, Silver pulls out the peeled apricorn that was gonna be his dinner, but The Gator’s not interested in it.

Not seeming to know what to do, The Gator swings it’s head to the side. Silver decides the best—and least painful—course of action is to just follow The Gator’s movements. It glares at him, then shakes its head more. It hurts.

“Stop, stop!” Silver’s yells as The Gator shakes it’s head. His voice is rusty and cracks from disuse, but the pokemon appears to be listening. “Stop,” He pleads it, “Let go. Let me go.” Staring at him all the while, it slowly releases it’s jaw. More blood spills out onto the creature’s tongue as Silver slowly pulls his hand back and marvels at it. 

That’s gonna leave a wicked scar. 

Right, he has a med kit, he was prepared. He reaches into it and pulls out some bandages, before realizing he needs to clean this. He presses both of his hands into a gauze pad, and he manages to find a stream after not long. Washing his hands in it, he removes a small piece of glass from his right hand, and carefully washes out the tooth marks in the left. Luckily, only 4 pierced skin, though they look... gnarly, and the bite’s certainly going to bruise. 

That’s okay though! That’s why he has his gloves, and, they’re torn and bloody, and washing them hurts, but he’s been in pain before! And he can’t see his wounds under the nice fresh bandages! Man, he was smart to prepare a medical kit. This, this isn’t too bad! He has his freedom.

At least he has his freedom. He’s free. 

Which is... great. It’s...

The Gator is staring at him from behind. 

The Gator has it’s freedom too, because Silver dropped it’s bloody pokeball who knows where. It waddles up to Silver, glaring him down, so he tactically curls up a little to defend himself from it. Growling, it lowers it’s head and nips at Silver’s arm. 

The bites aren’t as nasty as the first chomp, just nibbles. After chewing him a little, The Gator flops over and curls up into Silver’s side, closing it’s eyes. Silver’s heart seizes in apprehension and from the weird very uncomfortable feeling touching living things always gives him. Not wanting to disturb the toothy creature, he decides to just sit here. Slowly pulling out the apricorn from earlier, he splits the fruit and eats a half. Yum! Fresh fruit! The other half gets set in front of The Gator, who opens one eye and chomps down the fruit in one fast bite. 

Maybe it still... maybe it still wants to be friends.

“T-truce? Truce.” Silver whispers, because speaking louder makes his throat sore. He places a hand on The Gator’s side, and it snaps slowly in the air in a weak warning. He draws his hand back quickly, and freezes in place.

The sun sets. It takes Silver a little while to fall asleep.

——————

Life’s going pretty good right now. 

The Gator occasionally attacks him still but so far the only bite that’s pierced skin like the first one is the chomp on his leg after The Gator was revived after his loss against a particularly feisty Spinark. The Gator loves fighting, hates losing, and only ever seems to hear things if Silver yells them. He tries to adjust the volume he speaks at but it’s painfully difficult—he can only either whisper, or yell. It feels demeaning and frustrating. Talking should just be like, a right, not something he has to practice. He never stopped talking for that long, anyway.

Life’s a lot more interesting now, too. The Gator’s bad, but with The Gator, at least there’s progress. After getting some prize money, Silver got himself a better backpack, _real human food(convenience store sushi, though the weird-textured green grass didn’t taste that good and The Gator took half) _, and a few Pokeballs. The Gator seems to want to bite everything Silver initially wanted to catch, but he couldn’t bite this zippy little blue bat Silver found in a cave, and in trying to escape Bat tackled Silver’s face probably by accident so Silver hit it with a pokeball. The Gator still can’t chomp Bat and it drives The Gator nuts and he usually bites Silver when he gets upset about it, but that’s okay as long as his own pokemon aren’t fighting. Silver doesn’t really understand if The Gator knows it can just walk away from conflicts but regardless, it seems really determined to bully him into this whole trainer thing. It only seems fair to let Bat free most the time since The Gator gets to be free. It flew away at first, but then came back to follow them in the shade.__

The first time Bat touched him is at sundown. It sneakily crawls into his jacket for warmth and and it makes Silver really happy if a bit uncomfortable, like always. The Gator’s curls at his side too, and when he wakes up the Gator is chasing off a pidgey that was definitely thinking of messing with them. Silver thanked The Gator. In return, it gave him a friendliness chomp. 

That morning, they all ate a breakfast of berries together. Apricorns are plentiful this time of year, and are delicious once split and shelled. The Gator starts helping by crunching them with his strong jaw so Silver doesn’t have to break em’ with rocks anymore. Which is good, because Silver’s hands aren’t really great for much right now as touching anything with his palms still hurts. 

The Gator is boss. It seeks trainers and pokemon to fight and Silver gives it advice and sometimes switches it with Bat. Silver’s pretty sure The Gator approves of strategy. Together, he, his zippy Bat, and The Gator feel... 

Unstoppable. This is what it is to be a trainer, huh? 

After a few good days, he’s proud enough of himself and his dudes that he heads into town and decides to train at the local tower. Everything’s going pretty well, though Silver’s got an ominous feeling. And then he sees him. 

_Oh great._ It’s that guy, the first dude he tried to fight. He’s probably put two and two together and realized Silver’s the thief by now. But, Silver won’t panic, like last time. He’s got The Gator, Bat, and an ominous feeling. Wait, that’s still there? The Ominous Feeling takes shape and it’s a big ol’ ball of gas with eerie grin, floating behind him. It smiles toothily at Silver. 

Oh...ok. Yknow, the boy can’t know that this wasn’t intentional so now Silver’s gonna pretend like the ghost is his pokemon. The Gator shouldn’t be able to bite this guy either, so there shouldn’t be a problem. 

They fight and it’s super cool. Silver manages to smack around the trainer’s first to pokemon alright, though the ghost disappeared after the second win. Then the trainer sends out his legitimately obtained starter, and even though he sends in Bat to fight the nasty slinky fire thing, The Gator elbows his way in there after bat takes a bit of fire and screeches at the fire thing to fight. Silver holds tight onto Bat as The Gator starts getting himself really worked up, biting and chomping and shooting water every which way. Silver’s getting a little concerned about the floorboards it breaks, but he’s too scared to speak up to The Gator. In the end, The Gator can’t catch up to his rival’s nasty fire weasel’s speed and he gets knocked out by it. Warily, Silver just grabs The Gator and runs again. 

_———————————_

Ever since the start of pokemon and training, trainers have always had rivals. It’s just fated to be or something like that. And Gold, his rival’s a really nasty one. 

He’s got mean, narrow eyes, an all-black outfit and long-red hair. He yells at his pokemon to command them, and doesn’t even seem to need to give his pokemon orders—they can just fight on their own, and it’s really cool. Some of Gold’s pokemon need orders or they’ll go pick dandelions or wander over to him in the middle a battle just for snuggles. But Silver’s too cool for that—he’s cold, emotionless jerk, he’s a bully to his own pokemon, he’s a thief and he needs to be stopped. 

Gold’s certain of all this. 

He runs into his rival again at the entrance to Ilex forest. They fight, and once more, Gold just barely pulls through with a victory. When asking about why Silver was leaving Gold says he’s running away like a big baby and his rival does the world’s fiercest 180 kick flip and somehow, they’re both walking to the Slowpoke Well to kick team rocket’s patootie, and Gold’s world s making a little less sense. 

It’s weird. Silver doesn’t talk like a normal person. Gold attempts in vain to make small talk, and he just glares back at him like something Gold said was offensive. It’s like he’s got the icy exterior of Mt. Silver itself. 

_—————————_

They kick team rocket’s ass. It’s not extremely easy, but it still goes stupid smoothly. In the end, Gold has 2 pokemon left while his rival’s are all knocked out. As Gold rewards Simmer with a berry, he sees his rival crouched over his own starter. 

And then his rival stops breathing, for some confounded reason, in Slowpoke Well, _after_ they’ve finished kicking Team Rocket patootie. He curls up in a little ball and can’t breath and can’t move and Gold tells him to quit it but his rival doesn’t seem to hear him, with his eyes shut tight and his hands over his ears. He touches his arm but the ginger flinches away with eerie desperation and it makes Gold feel really bad. He can’t just leave his rival here. ‘Cus like, what if the rocket dudes forgot something and came back? Then the redhead would be all defenseless. 

Well, he wouldn’t be defenseless anymore. Gold used a revive, and now his rival’s Croconaw is hovering around it’s trainer with it’s omnipresent anger. Gold lets out his parter, Simmer, and she sticks to Gold’s side defensively. Gold sits down a few feet away from his rival, and pets Simmer as he waits for something to happen. 

The good news is that his rival’s breathing is normal now. The bad news is that he’s passed out cold. Simmer seems to have some kind of weird... silent staring conversation with the Croconaw, and the reptile now doesn’t seem as bothered by when Gold approaches his rival. He beacons to the Croconaw, and he helps set his rival on the reptile’s back. With his rival secured, they move towards the exit of the well. Unfortunately, nobody can climb the ladder with Silver on their back, so they wait at the ladder’s base. Rather roughly, the Croconaw drops it’s trainer on the ground and snorts. 

They wait. Gold gets hungry. He lets out all his pokemon, and does a health checkup on them—they’re not roughed up too bad. He’d keep them out, but their presence seems to make the Croconaw uncomfortable, so he puts them back, leaving only Simmer again. He snuggles into his starter for warmth, and the Croconaw curls up by his rival. Before sleeping, he sneaks one more peak at the redhead. 

He’s limp, and out cold. Gold doesn’t think he’s ever seen his rival’s face look this relaxed before. It’s always tense and stern and glaring at him or more recently, tired. It feels pretty dumb because Gold just wants a normal cool rival, not some weirdo he has to spend a night in a cave to protect. But, here he is. Yawning, he curls up to Simmer and cuddles his Togepi, deciding to try and get some sleep too. Murky, his murkrow, will stay awake. 

He wakes up to Simmer’s rough tongue on his forehead. Looking up, stars can be seen above the well—then Gold blinks, as he sees a bright light at the top of the well, accompanied by a voice. It’s fruit pokeball weirdo, holding a lantern.<

Fruit pokeball weirdo climbs down and ties the rival to his back with the rope he brought, complaining about back problems all the while. Simmer slinks up onto Gold’s shoulders and the Croconaw follows close behind the man carrying it’s trainer, only growling at the man occasionally. The man invites Gold to stay the night, and the young trainer is far too tired to not comply. Plus, he’s gotta make sure Silver is... doesn’t cause any trouble when he wakes up. 

Their rescuer’s name is Kurt, and he thanks them for their work. Now Gold’s sitting in a little living room studio, waiting for his bed to be set up. Gold struggles to keep his eyes open as he sees the man lays rival into the first futon they prepared. The man pauses, then removes his rival’s gloves. He nods. Gold blinking blearily and sees that his rival’s hands are all bandaged up. Simmer’s head is up and she’s in a state of extreme alert, so Gold should probably be paying attention now too. Kurt removes layer after layer of thick bandages from his rival’s palms, then gasps once the first one’s all off. 

Gold sees something terrible. A long wound, wickedly red and clearly irritated cut, has dug its way into his rival’s palm. There’s something worse on the other hand. It’s in as bad condition as the other, and Gold’s never seen something so... wrong in his life. He knows what made that mark. It could only be one thing. 

Croconaw had come into the living room with them and was hostilely sitting in a corner. It’s looking at the ground now, face hard to read. Kurt gets up and grabs a broom. 

He tells Gold to get his pokemon ready. Shakily, Gold complies. They face off the reptile, standing between it and it’s trainer. 

“Get out,” Kurt spits at it. “Get out.” He raises his voice and the Croconaw stands, growling at them. It snaps a few times, but is moving towards the door. With a couple shakes of a broom and a hiss from Simmer, it departs. Gold can see it’s shadow outside the paper door, though. 

“Feral pokemon don’t stay in the house,” Kurt asserts. Gold nods dumbly, and Kurt stares at him. “Past your bedtime, huh.” 

Kurt prepares Gold’s futon so he can finally crawl into something before getting back to work on Silver’s messed up hands. Gold, clutching Simmer, can’t stop watching as Kurt carefully applies a salve to the wounds and mixes some powdered medicine that he feeds to Silver, washing it down with water. Kurt’s re-bandaging his rival’s hands while Simmer squirms in front of his face so he can’t see anymore, but that doesn’t really matter, because he’s soon asleep. 

_——————————_

It’s so unfair. Everything’s always been so unfair. 

All the other Totodile were put out before him. He was only set on display, for the feigning of a choice, since the Professed had known Gold had wanted a Cyndaquil since he was 10 and even saved a clever one for the boy—she’s going as “Simmer” now. In comparison, his owner hasn’t named him, and barely ever talks except to yell, though that suits Croconaw fine, because if it hasn’t been for his trainer’s _spunk_ , he never would’ve had this opportunity anyway. 

All because he’s “too aggressive”—who cares. He always _wins_ , and that’s what should matter for a trainer. 

Croconaw learned that the kid who stole him is just some antisocial runaway mop of red hair. He couldn’t just gonna stand for that—he had to show the kid who’s boss. Clearly, the kid would react like a proper trainer or _anybody_ here and dismiss him quickly. 

_He didn’t expect humans to be that squishy._

It was honestly an accident, that his first bite went so deep—a bite like that wouldn’t have even gotten through Simmer’s coat. Then after he bit, he felt honestly confused as to do as it didn’t seem his supposed trainer got the message. 

It turned out humans don’t heal like pokemon, either. He noticed his trainer wincing every time something touches the palm of his hand—he’d never thrown a pokeball and barely touched them, which Croconaw would tell him is very disadvantageous for a trainer. But after the night he sees the red, festering gouges on his trainer’s hand, he begins to understand the severity of his actions. 

Something clicks in his cold heart. This must why he wasn’t given to the beginner trainers. 

As he sits out in the brisk night, alone and feeling cold without his warm, meatsack trainer to curl up against, he begins to reconsider his past. There’s must have been something all his siblings had that he didn’t—before, he considered it domesticity, which he also considered weakness. They were excited for something more then just a chance to prove themselves as a battler— they were looking for a friend, too. His siblings whined and wished for a trainer who would give them attention and good food, while Croconaw only wanted a trainer who’d make him as strong as possible. 

Lifting his head to the night sky, Croconaw feels a sense of duty begin settle heavy in his heart. It must go both ways—his trainer needs something more then just a strong, proficient pokemon. His trainer needs a friend, too. 

His snout wrinkles as he thinks of it, the thought still mildly disgusting him. But then, he just feels... bizarrely inadequate. His trainer would’ve been much better off with one of his foolish siblings. 

His trainer hates and fears grown humans with a passion. Due to his wounds, Croconaw has abandoned him directly in an grown human den. This is all Croconaw’s fault, due to his mistakes. 

Croconaw squirms his fat body underneath the bottom of the house and waits. If he’s under here, then he’ll notice the exact moment his trainer wakes up. Which means, he can check for sure if his trainer’s okay and defend him from all the humans he’s afraid of. And of course, once he’s done that, he can continue to battle and show everyone how great he is. He’ll be better then all his siblings, because he’ll be so strong that his trainer won’t have to be scared of anyone, ever, and won’t get caught even if he does more bad things. 

That is, if his trainer forgives him. 

_Croconaw really hopes his trainer forgives him._

——————————  
Silver wakes up. It takes him .5 seconds to realize he’s in someone’s house before he immediately locates his bag on a workdesk, and some man next to his bag. The man appears to be carving a pokeball. All of a sudden, his legs are moving and then not moving right and he’s down again with a bang, which makes the man look at him. He’s got an intense, angry expression. _Shit._

But before Silver knows it, there’s a giant hole in the tatami floorboards and a 150 pound Gator between him and the pokeball man. The Gator is very big, very bright blue, and growling antagonistically at the man who’s shouting back and so Silver throws his arms around the creature’s body. It freezes up, and ice runs through Silver’s veins. He’s never grabbed The Gator like this before. It’s probably going to attack him. 

The Gator takes one step backwards, then another, bumping Silver up against the back of the wooden wall, glaring down the man the whole time. Then, he lowers his head to make eye contact with Silver. 

It’s looking for... approval? In this expression, there’s a mix of guilt, regret and most shockingly it’s unsure. Silver’s never read an ounce of insecurity in any of The Gator’s actions before this. It’d always fought with bold, unshakable confidence, and when it was put down, it only ever came back up going harder then ever. 

_[ ](http://i.imgur.com/UzK4SIH) _

Silver adjusts his grasp slightly on The Gator and pulls it closer his own body. He hugs it very snugly—The Gator is unusually cold, it must be an effect of having slept outside for the night. Being cold can’t be comfortable for the lizard. The Gator adjusts, turning around, letting Silver pulls it even closer. For protection, yeah. He’s got a face full of scales now and a heavy jaw on his shoulder, and he slowly begins to understand the situation. 

He fainted in the well last night—he doesn’t know why and that really scares him, though he also feels a little sluggish still. Was he... drugged? The thought makes his heart race but it’s okay, nobody can get to him through his super tough Gator, and the Gator’s right here right now with sleek cool scales that feel nice against Silver’s fingers. He focuses on the sensation for a few seconds, before returning to his thoughts when he’s ready. 

He doesn’t remember giving anybody an opportunity to drug him, especially not the rocket members, so he’s probably safe on that front. There was Gold down there, but he... he’s not the type. Now that he’s not panicking, he notices that his hands feel a lot better, and the bandages are different then how he would’ve wrapped them. They... 

The pokeball man must’ve noticed and treated them, or Gold must’ve. They’re still uncomfortable, but the pain isn’t hot and itchy like before. It’s... nice. Really nice. 

These aren’t very many answers, but they seem like enough for now. Now that his heart rate’s gone down, Silver realizes how tired he is. He needs to get out of here, but he can’t form words to tell The Gator to get them out of here. 

Eh. Doesn’t matter. 

Silver closes his eyes. 

_——————————_

So one kid falls asleep in his living room slumped on his big stupid feral crocodile pokemon and the other slept through the entire debacle like a brick. His Quilava did wake up, but with things settling down, it has really returned to sleep. Sighing and rubbing his ever-aching back, Kurt leans his broom against his nearby workdesk and takes up his trusted stool. He pulls an almost finished custom pokeball down and begins painting the tiny, intricate details on it. 

_This is all so stupid._

If he didn’t have his stupid sympathies due to his stupid granddaughter hanging around, he would never agree to this. But the redhead’s friend begged Kurt not to take his rival to a center for some of the stupidest reasons, but the bullheaded idiot wouldn’t relent, so he reluctantly agreed—besides, Kurt had noticed the redhead moving gingerly with his hands while he was battling Bugsy. He recognized similar movements to the few times he accidentally hurt his own hands while he was crafting. Thusly, he decided to take the opportunity to see what the stupid kid probably wasn’t taking care of right. After all, the center wouldn’t know to check the kid’s hands. 

And Kurt was unfortunately right—not only were these wounds bad, but they were infected. He would’ve taken the kid to a hospital right away if it wasn’t for the herbs he had on hand—most people go to Cianwood for the processing, but with the right tools, medicine can be collected at home, and with the Ilex forest nearby, Kurt fortunately had an excess of traditional medicine. Treating his hands were a fairly simple matter. Getting the dammed poorly-trained lizard out of his house wasn’t, but fortunately, it didn’t take much persuading. 

It looks like the redhead kid had traveled all across the Johto region picking up exclusively Apricot berries, and only Arceus knows why he kept the shells, but he owned a few dozen of them in his bag. Most are perfect, beautifully cut and split, too: they must be boiled perfectly. Who knows how he got his hands on this collection, but if Kurt had it... 

He’d be well-off for months. Crafting, furnishing, you name it—nobody ever wants to supply an old man with weird fruit shells to make old-fashioned pokeballs with—Kurt’s pretty sure he’s the last serious crafter in the entire region, which means getting materials is unreasonably costly. Freakin’ hobbiest providers overcharge. 

But here he is, stumbling through comes some deranged damaged kid with an absurd supply likely in need of a place to stay for the next few days. 

At the very least, he can make a proposition. 

_——————————_

Kurt seems to be the type of scumbag that Silver was used to dealing with—which at the very least, made Silver trust the man slightly more, as he understood exactly what the man was after. Which is to say, his apricorn collection. On one hand, this meant he wouldn’t have the cool, smooth shells he liked to collect anymore, but on the other, it meant a place to stay and treatment for his hands, which were becoming a problem. Silver had been very reluctant to leave at first, but the Kurt had convinced him to stay. 

The man, as part of their deal, of course, gave Silver a few pokeballs to even out the trade. It was enough to replace the poke balls for his current team, and a few extras, for future members. With that, the man’s payment is complete. 

Strangely enough, the boy who he went to the cave with sticks around while Silver’s hands recover. Silver makes sure to try to scare him off with scary words about how weak the dude is and The Gator does a stellar job growling at him, but unfortunately, the kid seems to have more guts then he expected initially and doesn’t disappear. 

With bravado and courage coming from _who knows where_ in that tiny, obnoxious brain, the bastard says that he’ll keep an eye on Silver to make sure he doesn’t do anything else evil. If not, then Gold says he’ll kick “Silver’s patootie” in a fight and drag him to the police. 

Silver already knows between the two of them, who would win. 

_Bastard._

**Author's Note:**

> wow haha Holy Shit did I write a lot of vent fics during college and never post em’ this is one alright i hope I fellas and femellas and nbfellas over in the pokespe. discord enjoy this its a thing i wrote before i got into pokespe. meta and now only want to write that there was more then one chapter vaguely thought about in the works but that’s probably a nah because of the pokespe. meta thing also if you’re here from ringing im sorry i have nothing to say for myself please don’t slaughter me at  
> the  
> steak  
> freelance poetry endnotes section is over now. go home! its over! oh and thanks a bijillion for reading i hope you enjoyed and only cried a little i mean it would be an honor byE


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